LibriVox recording of Mary Louise, by L. Frank Baum. Read by Sibella Denton.

The Bluebird Books is a series of novels popular with teenage girls in the 1910s and 1920s. The series was begun by L. Frank Baum using his Edith Van Dyne pseudonym, then continued by at least three others, all using the same pseudonym. Baum wrote the first four books in the series, possibly with help from his son, Harry Neal Baum, on the third.

The books are concerned with adolescent girl detectives— a concept Baum had experimented with earlier, in The Daring Twins (1911) and Phoebe Daring (1912). The Bluebird series began with Mary Louise, originally written as a tribute to Baum's favorite sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster. Baum's publisher, Reilly & Britton, rejected that manuscript, apparently judging the heroine too independent. Baum wrote a new version of the book; the original manuscript is lost.

The title character is Mary Louise Burrows. In the first books of the series, she is a fifteen-year-old girl with unusual maturity (though the other girls in her boarding school find her somewhat priggish). She is suddenly confronted with the fact that her beloved grandfather is suspected of no less a crime than treason against the United States. With the help of old and new friends of Mary Louise … the truth is uncovered. The novel features a federal agent named John O'Gorman; he is assisted by his daughter Josie, a young woman he has himself trained to function as an investigator. (The Josie O'Gorman character, despite preceding Nancy Drew by more than a decade, is much less traditionally feminine.) (Summary from Wikipedia)

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M4B format available


This audio is part of the collection: The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection
It also belongs to collections: Audio Books & Poetry; Community Audio

Artist/Composer: L. Frank Baum
Date: 2009-02-02
Source: Librivox recording of a public-domain text
Keywords: librivox; audiobook; teen/young adult; mystery; girl detectives; bluebird series; baum; edith van dyne

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: mikezane - - August 19, 2011
Subject: Enjoyable story
I am now in the process of either listening to or reading all the Mary Louise books.

The summary covers the plot of the story. Mary Louise is a frisky young lady who works at outsmarting the secret service to save her grandfather, whom she can not believe is guilty of treason. It's a good thing the secret service has the help of an unexpected player.

Reader is excellent, story is excellent, enjoy!

Reviewer: Paula H - - October 15, 2009
Subject: loved this book
simple mystery from a simpler time